What resolution/percent to use?

[iii]

I was told to use 3000x4000/300dpi for my resolution so I've used that or 4000x3000/300dpi. Is there an explanation for this?

And my other question is what percent should i sketch and paint in? I've been using 25% and a 3px brush to sketch.. but not sure if I'm going about this the right way and I'm confused completely about painting.

From what I understand when alot of digital paintings are complete, they are downsized 3 times..so are the settings I've been using correct or should I change them to somethin else?

:mod:

[Viridis]

300dpi is the minimum resolution required to get good print quality. So if you're doing something that will end up printed, 300 or 600 dpi is recommended.

I think the sketching and painting resolution is really up to you, though. I personally still do almost all sketching by hand and then scan it in-- I can never properly visualize the whole of a piece if I try to sketch digitally, because I'm always zoomed in. :/

The really high-rendering digital pieces are probably done at 600dpi so that the artists can get all those crazy details in. I think whether you want to do that or not depends on how you're painting. Either way, though, if you're putting them up on the web they're going to end up downsized to 72 or 96dpi and will be considerably smaller.

Maybe others can help you out better, here... I mostly just do colored lineart and so the crystal-clear resolution is not always as much of a concern for me.

[iii]

300dpi is the minimum resolution required to get good print quality. So if you're doing something that will end up printed, 300 or 600 dpi is recommended.

I think the sketching and painting resolution is really up to you, though. I personally still do almost all sketching by hand and then scan it in-- I can never properly visualize the whole of a piece if I try to sketch digitally, because I'm always zoomed in. :/

The really high-rendering digital pieces are probably done at 600dpi so that the artists can get all those crazy details in. I think whether you want to do that or not depends on how you're painting. Either way, though, if you're putting them up on the web they're going to end up downsized to 72 or 96dpi and will be considerably smaller.

Maybe others can help you out better, here... I mostly just do colored lineart and so the crystal-clear resolution is not always as much of a concern for me.

thx 4 ur reply :)

[john_d]

As far as percentages go, you want to keep your zoom at multiples of 5 or you'll get distortion from the scaling. 100%, 75%, 25%, all of these look better than 66.7%, 43% and other numbers that aren't multiples of 5. Try it and you'll see right away.

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Well "dpi" is a printer term...it stands for Dots Per Inch, and "ppi" is a slightly more correct term for digital art which stands for Pixels Per Inch. There is supposed to be a difference, but some software uses them interchangeably, and it's all about how much information is packed into a certain amount of space. 300 dpi is considered the "professional grade minimum" in terms of printing, but since computer monitors display at much less than that, anything posted online at 300 ppi will be over 3x larger than you want them to be. Plus, that allows anyone to print off your work at no quality loss (i.e. something most artists don't want).

There is a relationship between canvas size and ppi. For example if you paint at a lower resolution on a large enough canvas, you can get the same print quality as a image painted on a smaller canvas with high ppi.
i.e for a 10in x 13.334in print, a 3000 px by 4000 px image at 300 ppi, should be the same as an image painted on 6000 px by 8000 px canvas at 150 ppi. Likewise, a 1500 px by 2000 px canvas at 600 ppi, should give the same quality for the 10in x 13.334 in print.

Hope that wasn't as confusing as it looks. >_>

[Grief]

suggested reading via search.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=138265